Dual purpose chicken

[BreanneRN]

Well, out of what I ordered, most are roosters, only 2 speckled sussex hens out of 6 and 1 light brahma hen out of 5. Have 2 and 2 of the buff brahmas (bought at TSC). Perhaps I will keep the 2 speckled sussex hens as layers and look to a breeder for a good meat type speckled sussex rooster. Perhaps someone will have an extra?

 

[RiverOtter]

You have a misconception about dual purpose birds. "Feeding until big enough" is not what your trying to do. Normal feeding with a good protein amount is all you need. 18-20% is good. Separating cockerels from pullets aids the pullets in getting enough feed as the boys will push smaller birds off feeders so multiple feeders or separating is sometimes done.

With non meat hybrids your raising the birds to the cooking method you want. They have such a poor feed conversion the longer you raise them the more exorbitant the carcass for what results in more texture/muscle tone. Your best conversion will be to raise to broiler age. You can broil/grill to 14 weeks of age. You can fry to 18 weeks of age. And you can hold a few over for size and roasting birds up to 9 months. Most prefer 6 to 7 month roasters.

This all only means the meat gets more toned with age therefore the cooking method needs to increasingly be lower temp. You can obviously roast a broiler but would woe broiling a roaster. So you see, the size of bird means not when your getting into the non hybrid meat birds. Age is everything and you butcher the birds at age regardless of size. Size, plumpness and all those meat qualities you may desire come from the stock of bird not attempting to feed it plump. Standard bred, "heritage", or breeder stock as another term will provide better meat quality stock than hatchery stock. Breeders that breed for meat qualities and certain breeds would be your option for faster maturing dual purpose. A few breeds that fit this are New Hampshire, Dorking, Buckeye and others. Plymouth Rock are not the faster maturing birds they were in the 50's. Good breeder stock New Hampshire are fast maturing but still not what they were when used in broiler industry. And so on.

If there was a <3 button here, I would use it for this post.

There are really no more actual "dual purpose" breeds - largely because we don't use chickens the way we used to. Chicken wasn't generally some huge, meaty thing that you roasted in the oven. It was something you fried (young cockerel) or stewed (older hens), slow-cooked in wine (mature roosters) and the idea was to get a balance between keeping decent egg-laying ability and not feeding strapping huge hens all winter and having a decent carcass to show for your trouble, because Me-Maw served up ALL the birds eventually;

Ma-mom raised free feed store birds. Mostly leghorns. When eating time came, leghorn it was. Always had a fresh supply. They would go broody and bring in babies. She only free ranged and shot every predator that stuck its nose out. Go Grandma!

... it was just a question of when they were best served. "Dual purpose" breeds, back when Granny was using hard-earned money and grain that HAD to feed the family in some way, were those that were economical to keep past "Yup, that one's a boy" and fatten instead of frying the little things up every Sunday after they'd revealed themselves.
~BUT~ One year is a chicken generation. If a breed was known for this in 1950, but since than has been bred for show (form and feather, production and maturity rate unimportant) or for backyards (color and egg-laying ability), well, that was 77 generations ago, or, in human terms; What were YOUR ancestors up to around the year 498 and how does it show in you now?

The reason I was gonna separate was so they could eat a lot. So I could feed them out. I guess what I'm wondering is do I have to feed them out or feed then normally and when the time comes they will already be big enough to butcher.

If you want to do like Grandma did, yes, separate the birds. You want to mark the FIRST little clucker to show himself to be a rooster and keep THAT one - NOT the one who snuck by with the pullets until they started to lay. The first way you're breeding for faster maturity, like Nanny wanted, the second, you are breeding for slow growth and late egg laying. But you're not really going to fatten them, so much as keep an eye on who's growing the fastest (again, that's the boy you want) and keeping them from harassing the ladies. Past that, raise them for the recipe you want. It will NOT be roast chicken ... or at least not like you're used to.

You do that for 5 - 10 years, selecting the meatiest rooster from the first handful to get little red combs and give you the side-eye, and breeding him to the heaviest 5 of the first 10 pullets to lay an egg and you'll be well on your way to having a bird your ancestors would recognize as dual-purpose

 

[Molpet]

If there was a <3 button here, I would use it for this post.

There are really no more actual "dual purpose" breeds - largely because we don't use chickens the way we used to. Chicken wasn't generally some huge, meaty thing that you roasted in the oven. It was something you fried (young cockerel) or stewed (older hens), slow-cooked in wine (mature roosters) and the idea was to get a balance between keeping decent egg-laying ability and not feeding strapping huge hens all winter and having a decent carcass to show for your trouble, because Me-Maw served up ALL the birds eventually;
... it was just a question of when they were best served. "Dual purpose" breeds, back when Granny was using hard-earned money and grain that HAD to feed the family in some way, were those that were economical to keep past "Yup, that one's a boy" and fatten instead of frying the little things up every Sunday after they'd revealed themselves.
~BUT~ One year is a chicken generation. If a breed was known for this in 1950, but since than has been bred for show (form and feather, production and maturity rate unimportant) or for backyards (color and egg-laying ability), well, that was 77 generations ago, or, in human terms; What were YOUR ancestors up to around the year 498 and how does it show in you now?



If you want to do like Grandma did, yes, separate the birds. You want to mark the FIRST little clucker to show himself to be a rooster and keep THAT one - NOT the one who snuck by with the pullets until they started to lay. The first way you're breeding for faster maturity, like Nanny wanted, the second, you are breeding for slow growth and late egg laying. But you're not really going to fatten them, so much as keep an eye on who's growing the fastest (again, that's the boy you want) and keeping them from harassing the ladies. Past that, raise them for the recipe you want. It will NOT be roast chicken ... or at least not like you're used to.

You do that for 5 - 10 years, selecting the meatiest rooster from the first handful to get little red combs and give you the side-eye, and breeding him to the heaviest 5 of the first 10 pullets to lay an egg and you'll be well on your way to having a bird your ancestors would recognize as dual-purpose

 

[BreanneRN]

As to creating your own strain of dual purpose birds, it sounds great in theory, but I am retirement age and 5 or 10 years might be half my remaining lifespan... It does sound like a good management program, but I think I need a jumpstart on the whole thing... By the way, what is the best age of rooster for chicken cacciatore? Would that be considered a roaster? Or a broiler? (Yeah, I know, I'm kind of dumb, been buying chickens in the grocery store for years).

 

[Egghead_Jr]

A lot will have to do with preference of taste. Many find older birds too strong of flavor. Cacciatore is pan fried chicken so up to 18 weeks of age or you could use older birds and precook the meat by suitable means and add to sauce.

All chicken in the store are broilers regardless of label. Not a one would have been butchered later than 10 weeks of age. Those 7 lbs "roasters" are 10 week old broilers. It's this kind of labeling by size that confuses people. Back in the day the label of bird actually meant something and that was age of bird. The older the bird the lower cooking temp and more moisture used. The birds were labeled to hottest cooking temp you should use.

Broiler- up to 14-15 weeks
Frier- up to 18-20 weeks
Roaster- up to 9 months, some went to year old.
Stew- over year old

 

[ijon]

My heritage Buckeyes are growing super. They are one month now and are all feathered out with nice heavy little bodies. I think breeders are your best bet if your trying to get the biggest bird. The two times now that I have brought from breeders I have had good luck. The rooster in my picture, long gone, super nice rooster was twelve pounds.

 

[BreanneRN]

@ijon, have any pics of the Buckeyes? And what kind was the 12 lb rooster in the avatar pic? Thanks!

 

[ijon]

He was a heritage Delaware. He came from a breeder in Florida. Her web site is Eight acres farm. She has beautiful birds.I will try to get pictures of my Buckeyes.

 

[BreanneRN]

He was a heritage Delaware. He came from a breeder in Florida. Her web site is Eight acres farm. She has beautiful birds.I will try to get pictures of my Buckeyes.

Thanks so much! Look forward to seeing the Buckeyes, first I have heard of this heritage American bred bird...

 

[ijon]

Did you check out the lady in Florida web site? She has more than Delwares.